THE HERO Si 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSre 



THE HERO SERIES 

KING 
CROMWELL 



BY 



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WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 

Author ot "A Hero and Some 
Other Folk," Etc. 



» O J) O J 




CINCINNATI: JENNINGS & PYE 
NEW YORK: EATON & MAINS 



THE L!SRA«Y 9f 
Two Copies Receivfeu 

APR. 24-1902 

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COPYRIGHT, 1902, BY 
JENNINGS & PYE 



King Cromwell 

Fellowship with great ideas amplifies the 
soul. The study of a sunset or a m.ountain or 
the sea exalts him who studies. Great ideas 
are the heritage of the human mind. But a 
man is always greater than any material thing. 
The spiritual always dwarfs the physical. The 
mountain, lifting forehead to the heavens, is 
less a giant than the man who stands at its 
far base and computes its altitude. The loco- 
motive, with its ponderous complexity, is sim- 
plicity and commonplaceness as conipared 
with Stephenson, who created the iron mon- 
ster and governs its goings. The ocean, that 
home of slumbering storms and wrathful tem- 
pests, that symbol of infinity and omnipo- 
tence, — the ocean is not so great as the dreamy 
man who stands upon its shore and meditates 
its mastery. Columbus is greater than the 
great Atlantic. 

A man is an aggregation of ideas. He 
embodies some movement; is the ampUfica- 
tion of some concept. He is, therefore, of 
supreme importance to the world. He is, by 

3 



4 King Cromwell 

virtue of his greatness, passed into the circu- 
lating medium of the intellectual realm, and 
is not to be underrated. To study him is not 
servility nor hero worship, but is wisdom and 
honest dealing with one's own life. Show me 
greatness, and you have made me your debtor. 
To be associated with the colossal elevates the 
spirit. This is a common fact of intellectual 
history. Every man who has lifted himself 
from the low levels, where he found his life 
groveling, knows that except he had touched 
the hem of greatness' garment, he had never 
arisen even to his little height. 

Cromwell was a great soul. Near him I 
feel as if I stood within the shadow of a pyra- 
mid. The day is gone when men wrangled 
over his greatness. If any man call the roll of 
imperial genius, be sure the name of Oliver 
Cromwell will be there. His burly figure 
stalks across every stage where genius doth 
appear. There are some men who are locally 
great. Their genius is provincial. They be- 
long to vicinities. Close at hand they seem 
men of mighty stature; far removed they ap- 
pear as pigmies on the plain. To this class 
most men of note belong. They have their 
day. They serve their generation. Their serv- 



King Cromwell 5 

ice to the world is not to be underrated. With- 
out them history would indeed suffer loss. 
And yet their speech is not a world speech, 
nor are they world figures. 

There are other men who have no marks of 
provincialism, either in speech or look. They 
have hung their blazing orbs so high as to 
have become the luminaries of the world. 
Their glory is so illustrious that all men count 
them stars of the first magnitude. They have 
"become a name." The earth esteems their 
fame a precious heritage. To this decimated 
list the name of Cromwell belongs. However 
much men differ in their estimates of his char- 
acter, there is practically no differing on the 
question of his genius. There is a unanimity 
of sentiment here, which must strike every 
reader of biography and history with delighted 
surprise, 

Gladstone ranks Cromwell with Charle- 
magne and Napoleon. Clarendon recognizes 
him as no common man. Nicholson says: ''He 
was a man for all ages to admire, for all Brit- 
ons to honor in proud remembrance;" and 
adds: "No royal name, at least since Alfred's, 
is more worthy of our veneration than that of 
the usurper, Oliver Cromwell." Thurloe, 



6 King Cromwell 

Cromwell's Secretary of State, himself no 
mean figure, declares, ''A greater soul never 
dwelt among men/'' Goldwin Smith says, "A 
greater proof of practical capacity was never 
given." Macaulay calls him ''the most pro- 
found politician of his age," and says: "Such 
was his genius and resolution that he was able 
to overpower and crush everything that 
crossed his path, and to make himself more 
absolute master of his country than any of her 
legitimate kings had been." Cardinal Mazarin 
gave his grudging but incontestable testimony 
to the Protector's greatness, in that he "feared 
Cromwell more than he feared the devil, and 
changed color at the mention of his name." 
The above remark will have the more signifi- 
cance if it be remembered that the cardinal 
had a lively belief in a personal devil; and his 
life was such that it can not be doubted he had 
a wholesome fear of him. Guizot, who can 
not be classed among Cromwell's panegyrists, 
pays this tribute to him: "He is, perhaps, the 
only example which history afifords of one man 
having governed the most opposite events, and 
proved sufficient for the most various des- 
tinies." This list of testimonials to the great- 
ness of the man Cromwell may well close with 



King Cromwell 7 

the phrase of Carlyle. To him, among his 
heroes, he is "Great Cromwell." And, indeed, 
there is no assignable reason why this man 
should not be placed in the list with a Great 
Frederick and a Great Charles. By right of 
his genius, he may well be named Cromwell 
the Great. 

If I am told that the man about to come 
upon the stage is one who founded empires, 
wore a crown of more than royal splendor, 
won plaudits from unwilling lips — and if such 
a man come, can it be otherwise than that I 
shall view him with attentive vision, even with 
my soul in my eyes! Behold, Cromwell is 
here! 

He is five feet ten inches high. He is broad, / 
burly, and half-clad in mail. A huge head, 
"fit to be the workshop of vast matters," is 
planted on his shoulders. He is fiery, fierce, 
brave as Achilles, yet tender as a woman. His 
is an English face. No perfumed Adonis he; 
no fine-cut Greek features — a Briton all and 
all. No man can well mistake this man's na- 
tionality. He looks of the race which pro- 
duced him; eyes that look into things and be- 
yond them; silent, melancholic, fitted for a 
soldier in a world's battle. He seemed a tower 



8 King Cromwell 

which it were folly to attempt to storm ; a bolt 
shot from a thunder-clottd, impossible to re- 
sist; a sphinx riddle, no man could solve; a 
secret that must die untold; a man you would 
turn to look upon when you pass, not know- 
ing why you looked. The Puritan soldier and 
prince has come. Look! 

Cromwell was born in 1599. As Carlyle 
has finely said, he was "always a year older 
than his century." P'our years later, Elizabeth 
died, and the Tudors were but a name in his- 
tory. He was born during a lull in national 
affairs, which was the calm before the fury- 
burst of the tempest. His life began on the 
verge of such a precipice that "the murmuring 
surge that on the unnumbered idle pebbles 
chafes, could not be heard so high" — a sheer 
leap down into a seething sea of war, of an- 
archy, of blood. His life was an arch which 
spans the chasm between two dynasties. His- 
tory has shown that he lived in a crisis, and 
was a man born for crucial moments in the 
chemistry of nations. Some men are fitted 
for epoch making — sinewy to withstand the 
fury of tremendous onset. Athanasius, Savon- 
arola, Luther, Cromwell, Pym, Lincoln — these 



King Cromwell 9 

men seem molded in colossal matrices lor un- 
usual service and superior destinies. 

Cromwell was well born; not greatly born. 
Here is a wise distinction nature makes, and 
men might well mark. He was not plebeian, 
was not prince. The blood of Scotch royalty 
flowed through his veins, and the strength of 
English yeomanry w^as latent in his arm. 
Through and through, he was a representative 
of the land of his nativity. He was of the mid- 
dle rank, which has made England what Eng- 
land is. He was a farmer, a cattle-breeder, a 
soldier cast in nobler than Roman mold. He 
was a man of college training, by forecast a 
lawyer: by providence and fealty to duty, a 
farmer, a general, a statesman, a king. 

Every man's genius is colored by his age. 
His environment does not control, but does 
put its stamp upon his destiny. The image and 
superscription of genius is imprinted by the 
age which produces the man. Few men are to 
be understood apart from their times. We must 
study the topography of genius, if we would 
comprehend the achievements of generals and 
the utterances of kings. If you will rehearse 
to me the story of Prometheus, tell me not 



lo King Cromwell 

only his name and fame, but that a black, 
scarred crag of the Caucasus held him, that 
the vultures gnawed at his vitals, that light- 
nings hurled their gleaming spears about his 
head, and thunders made his lonely citadel of 
pain to rock like fisher's bark on tempest- 
drenched seas. These things, the dire acces- 
sories of woe, are necessities for the compre- 
hension of the Titan tale. So of Moses, I 
must know not only who, but where: Egypt, 
born of a slave, adopted by a queen, learned 
in all the knowledge of that wisest land, a 
king's heir, self-exiled from the throne, lone 
Midian with its wandering flock, the sea passed 
through dry-shod, the desert, Sinai, the law, 
Pisgah, Nebo — all these things must be told 
ere I can comprehend the life of the chiefest 
legislator of the world. 

So must I understand the times in which 
this man Cromwell wrought if I would com- 
prehend his achievements. Born in Eliza- 
beth's reign! What a heyday of glory! What 
glamour clings about those days! Chivalry, 
romance, Raleigh, Leicester, din of arms, 
shout of victory, crash of Armadas, and 
through all haughty-faced, golden-haired Eliz- 
abeth, standing an omnipresent personality! 



King Cromwell ii 

How these incongruities become congruous 
when seen in those historic times! But we 
must look into these things more narrowly. 
Students of history must look through appear- 
ances into realities. Elizabeth's age was an 
age of incomplete reformation, of decaying 
chivalry, of commerce and colonization, of 
surprising energy and action, which produced 
the drama. These points summarize the dis- 
tinctive features of the Elizabethan era. Look 
at them briefly. 

The Reformation had no stronger or more 
virulent opposer than Henry VHI. He loved 
a Vv^oman not his wife, and wished to divorce 
his queen. Rome would not grant the king's 
desire, whereupon Henry denied Papal su- 
premacy. He married Annie Boleyn, and 
introduced the Reformation; but such a dis- 
torted semblance as to be scarcely recogniz- 
able. The Reformation came to England to 
gratify the lust of a lecherous king. The new 
Church differed from the old in one regard. 
In the old, the Pope was supreme; in the new, 
the king was supreme. King and Pope were 
combined in a single person. Here was the 
union of Church and State. It must be ap- 
parent that a change made for such reason^ 



12 King Cromwell 

and continued under such forms, must be a 
thing from which pure men would revolt. 
Elizabeth sustained the same » relation to the 
Church as had her father. With her the 
Church was a subordinate department of State. 
She was Protestant by circumstances. Her 
conscience was no active member of the Royal 
Council. She was head of the Protestant 
powers of Europe more as a matter of policy 
than religion. Indeed, to speak with even 
reasonable accuracy, she was such solely for 
politic reasons. It was, let us say sadly but 
with all certainty, an era of incomplete Refor- 
mation. 

It was also an age of decaying chivalry. 
The day of chivalry was growing late. The 
purity of knighthood was largely a departed 
glory. Instead of the nobility of sincerity, 
which made beautiful the face and fame of 
King Arthur, there was the laugh oi insincer- 
ity and the hollowness of hypocrisy. Chivalry 
was a dying splendor. The Sidneys and 
Raleighs were a hopeless minority. The im- 
purity that blights was rife. The court of 
Elizabeth was not the home of a Christian 
queen. The captivating beauty of Spenser's 
"Fairie Queen" finds no counterpart in the 



King Cromwell 13 

chivalry of Elizabeth's reign. "False Duessa" 
of Spenser's tale might well stand as the sad 
symbol of Elizabethan chivalry. Elizabeth 
fostered hypocrisy. She watered with her 
woman's hand that upas tree. She smiled on 
knighthood kneehng at her throne, with Hes 
as black as treason on the knight's lips. Chiv- 
alry, with its storied purity, was not. The 
Crusader, whose heart was full of nobility, and 
whose hand was full of deeds of high emprise, 
was dead. He slumbered in his grave; and 
with him slept the sacred dust of Christian 
chivalry. 

This was an age of discovery and coloniza- 
tion. The English were beginning to guess 
the secret of their insular position. The sea 
was beckoning them to sail beyond the sun- 
set. The fire that burned within the life of the 
Renaissance burned here. Men urged their 
way along the yeasting seas; they longed to 
sight new worlds. A Columbus heart throbbed 
in many a discoverer's breast. They sought 
new lands; and new lands found must be peo- 
pled. Commerce must build her metropolis of 
trade. Sailors, soldiers, settlers, must go to- 
gether. These were contemporaries in the new 
land. Boldness characterized the adventurer in 



14 King Cromwell 

Elizabeth's reign. She herself was as brave as 
Boadicea. Cowardice is not one of Elizabeth's 
sins, nor is it a sin of her age. There were 
bold men in those days, and they sailed to the 
world's limit, and essayed to seize new hemi- 
spheres for England's supremacy. 

It was the age of the drama. Those were 
days of action. Tremendous and almost re- 
sistless energy was here. The blood ran like 
lightning along men's veins. Magnificent en- 
ergies were driving along like a whirlwind. It 
was an actor's age. The drama grew out of 
the nature of things. That species of poetry 
grew in Greece when Athens was as sleepless 
as the ocean. It is the exponent of superla- 
tive energy. In such an atmosphere the drama 
grows to its full height. In EHzabeth's reign 
the drama ''rose like an exhalation." In a 
brief period it grew to such noble propor- 
tions that it might well lay claim to have 
wrested the scepter from the hand of Attica. 
EHzabeth's age shows the drama at its best; 
since then it has declined, a setting star. 

In an age marked with such peculiarities, 
Cromwell was born. Elizabeth's was essentially 
a feudal reign. The Tudors were a feudal house. 
Elizabeth was a feudal sovereign. She, hating 



King Cromwell 15 

death, died. Death tore the scepter from her 
hand, the purple from her shoulders, the crown 
from her head; he took her from her throne, 
and hewed her out a tomb. The Tudors were 
dead; the Stuarts were come. Strength was no 
more. Weakness clung with timid fingers to 
the royal prerogatives. In 1603, Elizabeth lay 
dying; in 164.9, Charles Stuart's head dropped 
on the scaffold at Whitehall — in 1603, a whole 
people delirious with loyalty; in 1649, ^^^ Eng- 
land sullen with wrath that slew their king. 
Truly, ''the old order changes, giving place 
to new." But the change in appearance was 
only indicative of the change the people had 
undergone. It was a tide telling how high the 
sea had risen. We may well challenge history 
to show so radical a change in so brief a 
period. It was the sailing into a new, untried 
sea. It was the passing into a new hemi- 
sphere lit with new stars; into a realm un- 
known, vast, curtained with mystery. It was a 
change so entire, so unparalleled, that no pre- 
cedent could be adduced. It was saiHng when 
chart and compass and stars are gone. 

This was not the England of Elizabeth, but 
a new and untried thing. Hers was the Eng- 
land of the cavalier and the Churchman. This 



i6 King Cromwell 

was the England of the commoner and the 
Puritan. It resembled the old order only in 
its possession of tremendous and resistless en- 
ergy. The river still plunged like a moun- 
tain torrent toward the sea; but the channels 
were changed. Puritanism was here. It came 
like an apparition. It stalked upon the stage 
of human affairs, and men knew not whence 
it came, nor whither it hastened. It was a 
strange thing; it was a great thing. What, 
then, is Puritanism? This question needs 
candid answer. More, it demands it. Puri- 
tanism is not an incomprehensible thing, but 
is in the main an uncomprehended thing. Men 
laugh at it, make their common jests at its 
expense. I had as lief laugh at Niagara or 
the Matterhorn. Stupendousness is not a fit 
subject for jest, nor subHmity a theme fitting 
the humorist's powers; yet the greater part of 
men's knowledge of Puritanism is that which 
appertains to its vagaries. It had idiosyn- 
crasies; all greatness has. It was not perfect, 
but was such a thing as towered immeasurably 
above all religious contemporaries. In our 
day, looking back across that seventeenth cen- 
tury plain crowded with armies, misted with 
battle-smoke, tumultuous with battle's din — 



King Cromwell 17 

looking back we behold Puritanism a peak 
lifting itself so high into the azure that, when 
all else is hid, it stands subHme, a beacon to 
the world. Puritanism was no tangle of incon- 
gruities, no maze of absurdities. It was wise 
above its day. It was a revolt against false- 
ness, hollowness, hypocrisy. It was an exodus 
of men from an Egypt of falsehood and insin- 
cerity into a Canaan of truth. It was the 
coming to the side of truth; the taking stand 
within the ranks of God. 

As has been shown, the x\nglican Church 
was half Romanism and more. It lacked those 
elements which should characterize an ecclesi- 
asticism. From such a thing the Puritans de- 
parted; and never had a religious exodus more 
justification. Puritanism was an incarnation 
of Christian conscience. That is saying much, 
but is speaking noble truth. True, it was not 
the genial and beautiful thing Christ's man- 
hood was. They patterned rather after Moses 
and Elijah than after Christ. But better Moses 
than Pharaoh, better Elijah than Ahab. Those 
who can scarcely marshal words meet for the 
task of condemning the Puritan severity of 
morals and life, find no difficulty in passing 
the orgies of a brothel court of the second 



1 8 King Cromwell 

» 

Charles with a feeble and smiling condemna- 
tion that amounts to a magnificat of sin. It 
were well to preserve at least a semblance of 
fairness in discussing important matters. So 
Puritanism came. It asked no man's leave. 
It stood a stern, strong, heroic thing. It 
championed the cause of purity and devotion 
to God. It believed in the brotherhood and 
common equality of man. It believed in one 
God and one Book. No better and no nobler 
tribute can be paid that band of Christian men 
and women whom history names Puritans than 
to say, as has been said, "They were men of 
one Book." The Bible was their vade mecum. 
These men possessed a devotion to duty, as 
they apprehended it, which was as beautiful 
as a mother's self-sacrifice; stern and pitiless 
as the winter's storm toward Romanism and 
sin in any guise, but tender towards wife, 
mother, babe, as any heart that ever beat. 
They were knights in a new and illustrious 
chivalry. They made battle for purity of 
thought, lips, and life. My heart, as it be- 
holds the Puritan, cries, "Hail, all hail!" 

This change was great past all belief. Pray, 
you, what caused it? But one answer is pos- 
sible, — the Bible. The Bible is a revolution- 



King Cromwell 19 

izer. That was the Book. Puritanism pored 
over it as schoolboys con their lessons with 
bent heads. They were saturated with the 
Bible thought and Bible phrase. Their 
thought framed itself to speech in the Bible 
sentences. On Dunbar's field, when mists be- 
gan to lift and the battle came, Puritan Crom- 
well cried, "Let God arise, and let his enemies 
be scattered." His was the Puritan speech. 
His life was molded by God's Book. With it 
all Puritans held constant companionship. 
The Bible is a renovator. Let the Bible enter 
any man's thought, and it will ennoble. Stand 
a man face to face with the Bible concepts, and 
he will begin to pant for room. It flings vast- 
ness into his soul. The Bible begets a new 
life. Puritanism was new. Men thought these 
men monstrosities; but they were noble nor- 
malities. There were in them greatness, wis- 
dom, goodness. Looking at them, we say, 
scarcely thinking what we utter, '^There were 
giants in those days." 

Cromwell was a Puritan. He was perme- 
ated with the decrees. His was a bilious tem- 
perament. He was moody, silent, brooding, 
melancholy. All great souls have melancholy 
hours, and know the ministry of silence. 



20 King Cromwell 

Moses prepared for God's work in the soli- 
tudes of Horeb; and every Moses must be girt 
for his great battles by the ministration of sub- 
lime silences. Cromwell, in his fen lands, in 
his silence, mused on God's Word, was con- 
verted, came into the secret of the Divine, 
merged his life into the life of God, and came 
to be a moody soul lit with resplendent Bible 
lights. Who does not comprehend this will 
not comprehend Cromwell. The hieroglyph- 
ics of this man's life are not decipherable if a 
man holds not this key. He embodied Puri- 
tanism. To know Milton and Cromwell is to 
know Puritanism. They are the high tides of 
that illustrious era. Cromwell had seen false 
chivalry die; had seen the true chivalry spring 
into majestic life; had seen the Puritan day 
grow crimson with the dawn. He dwelt under 
Stuart tyranny. That family was weak. The 
Tudors, whatever their faults — and they were 
many — were strong. Henry VH had a giant's 
arm. He was of kingly stature and imperial 
mold. Henry VHI, libertine as he was, had 
kingly powers and talent for administration 
akin to genius. Even Mary, with her hands 
dyed in martyr's blood, was not weak. She 
had virility not wholly mastered by her 



King Cromwell 21 

woman's heart. Her successor might well be 
named King Elizabeth. She was king, not 
queen. And when the government passed 
from a royal line, whose powers and prowess 
were manifest, into the hands of driveling in- 
competency and pedantic weakness, the antith- 
esis was so startling as to waken men from 
their quiescent moods, till on the lips of even 
steadfast loyalty there came the unpremedi- 
tated query, ''Why should this weakness reign 
over us?" 

Men will forgive much if there be strength. 
The French tolerated a Louis XIV, and not 
a Louis XVI, because the one was strong, and 
the other weak. They tolerated the adminis- 
tration and gloried in the rule of a Napoleon, 
and dethroned a Charles X, because Napo- 
leon, though a tyrant, was strong; and Charles 
was a tyrant and weak. The Stuarts were 
weak. There was no strength among them. 
Charles II, in spite of his monstrous vices, had 
more of the symptoms of strength than James 
I, Charles I, or James 11. James I was a 
pedant, an overgrown schoolboy, "the wisest 
fool in Christendom." Charles I was the crea- 
ture of favorites, was possessed of no gift of 
comprehending the people whom he ruled, was 



22 King Cromwell 

an egotist, and as false as even a king could 
well be. James II was an intolerant bigot, 
blind as a mole, and so incapable of learning 
that even a scaffold dyed with his father's 
blood could teach him no wisdom. Such were 
the Stuarts. The Tudors had been tyrannical, 
but were not pusillanimous in their weak- 
ness. There was no more despotism in James 
I than Elizabeth, nor in Charles I than in 
Henry VIII; but there was strength in the 
Tudors, and only weakness in the Stuarts. 
They were a puerile race. Charles had all the 
Tudor's pride and self-assurance, with none 
of the Tudor's astuteness or strength ; and the 
result is what any attentive reader of history 
might forecast. Men rebelled. The Puritan 
revolution grew as naturally as ever did the 
wind-flower or the violet. 

Liberty is a perennial reappearance. When 
man thinks it dead, it but "mews its mighty 
youth." It marches forward and upward. 
The contest between cavaHer and Puritan was 
liberty's conflict. The battle belonged, not to 
England, but to the world. It was the cause 
of our common humanity. And Cromwell, as 
the leader in the fray, becomes a figure in 
liberty's lists, and a character of consequence 



King Cromwell 23 

in the history of men. To every lover of hb- 
erty the name of Ohver Cromwell must have 
in it a deep and solemn music, like the singing 
of a psalm. Liberty's battle is on. The King 
is uppermost. He is victorious. Capacity 
comes to the front. Cromwell moves into 
view. He was no seeker of place ; place sought 
him. He tarried at home, and did the work 
that came to hand. He hated oppression. He 
loved liberty. What his kinsman Hampden 
did in the matter of ship-money, that Crom- 
well did in the matter of the draining of the 
fens. He felt himself in a high sense a sub- 
ject of the government of God. He held him- 
self ready to move obedient to the Divine 
command. Where duty called, he followed. 
Liberty called Cromwell: he did not call him-"" 
self. The exigencies of the hour pronounced 
his name. Capacity makes room for itself. It 
is always so. Gustavus Adolphus came be- 
cause the place needed him. In the swirl of 
battle great men appear, because the time calls 
them. When liberty puts clarion trumpet to 
her lips, and sounds her note of wild alarm, 
then a host answers, ''Lo, we come." War 
came in a great nation. This was no race of 
warriors, and had no long list of military great' 



24 King Cromwell 

ness from which to call leaders. The time 
came when the nation's life hung by a thread; 
when freedom's empire was well-nigh lost; 
and in the time of dire extremity help came. 
Grant, the invincible, with unostentatious bear- 
ing, comes and leads a million men to victory. 
It was the triumph of capacity. Greatness 
needs no herald before its face, nor asks for 
place, gift of another's hand ; but does its duty, 
bides its time. So Cromwell came; illustrious 
day! He saw what others did not see. This 
battle was not primarily between social classes, 
but between conscience, religion, manhood on 
the one hand, and no conscience and hollow 
insincerity on the other. 

"We must have God-fearing men," said 
Cromwell. This was a speech genius alone 
could pronounce. That was insight into the 
very spirit of the times. He knew the thing 
with which he had to cope. What his coadju- 
tors took years to learn, his acumen discovered 
at the first. Others led, he followed. Others 
in the van, he in the rear. He was not trou- 
bled about notice or praise. "God noticed 
him," says Carlyle. He was so faithful to his 
God and the cause of liberty as an inferior, as 
to be felt the superior of all. 



King Cromwell 25 

Some men seem great by lack of standard 
of measurement. Among a race of Lillipu- 
tians, a Gulliver becomes a giant. In inferior 
epochs, a man may tower above his contem- 
poraries; not because he is so great, but be- 
cause they are so insignificant. It is possibly 
so in this instance. But the question need not 
delay for answer. Look at his contemporaries. 
Call the names of those men who made those 
times memorable : Elliot, Pym, Hampden, Mil- 
ton, Ireton, Thurloe, Blake, — this is a roll of 
greatness. These men would have shone in 
the constellations of any age. Add the name 
of Strafford, that imperious aristocrat, the 
statesman of the first Stuart reign, and we shall 
find that Cromwell lived among men whom the 
world reckons great. How then came this 
Cromwell to stand among them so vast? If 
the man was not fit figure for the world's 
Pantheon, there is no explanation for the fact. 
He was a leader. He rose from the level where 
he served his country, to where he was the 
cynosure of every eye and the desire of Eng- 
land. He hid himself. He put others forward. 
He asked no rank, but seemed lost in the 
cause of freedom. 

It is observable that in some eras great men 



26 King Cromwell 

multiply. The times demand greatness. No 
progress is possible, except nature do bestir 
herself. See what hosts of notable generals 
the French Revolution produced. The names 
of men of superior powers in the American 
Revolutionary period are legion. It was the 
same in the crisis of the Rebellion. It is in 
such times, as if to meet the rush of the tem- 
pest and to withstand the mad charge of the 
sea, one gathered the latent, unsuspected en- 
ergies of his manhood, and dedicated them 
every one to the task of standing impregnable 
as a tower. In this struggle for liberty, when 
great issues hung in the balance, greatness 
multipHed. Statesmen unknown arose, and 
did legislate for generations that were yet to" 
be. The call, the answer, were blended in one 
voice. Great men were clustering about the 
standards of liberty; and the most command- 
ing figure on this stormy field is Oliver Crom- 
well. He is not to be accounted great because 
he dwelt among a pigmy brood ; but rather 
that, among a coterie of men whose talent was 
far removed from mediocrity, he, Saul-like, 
towered a head above them all. Essex must 
go to the rear; not that Cromwell willed or 
planned it, but that a greater than he had 



King Cromwell 27 

come. Cromwell desired Fairfax to have com- 
mand of the war against the Scots; England 
had other desires. She knew the general for 
the conduct of this war was not Fairfax, but 
Cromwell. The nation had come to know its 
leader, and Dunbar and Worcester justified 
England's choice. This quiet, unassuming 
man now stands revealed, 

"The pillar of a people's hope, 
The center of a world's desire." 

He "came, saw, conquered." He massed 
his God-fearing, praying battalions, and flung 
them on his enemies like an avalanche. God- 
fearing men led by a man of God were invin- 
cible. The world looked and wondered. 
Battle with these men was duty; for they 
fought God's battles. Cromwell suspected he 
was there to win. 

He declared he would slay the king, should 
they meet in hour of conflict. He knew his 
era as no other knew it. He conquered the 
king, the Irish, the Scotch, the Parliament. 
He merits the name of Cromwell the Con- 
queror. The train of his victories is like a 
silver highway on the swelling sea when the 
great moon is full 



28 King Cromwell 

It is not possible in a brief sketch to give 
an adequate estimate of genius such as this 
man possessed. For such task volumes only 
can suffice. But the characteristics of the man 
may be summed up best under a dual heading: 
First, the accusations brought against him; 
second, the claims made for him. Under the 
former of these captions three indictments may 
be mentioned: Fie was a hypocrite; he was 
cruel; he betrayed the cause of liberty. 

These are grievous charges. They do not 
militate against his genius; but they, if prov- 
able, will blast his character like an eternal 
mildew. Note each accusation. But before 
that task be attempted, let it be remarked that 
his contemporary biographers were those 
whom he had conquered in battle or mastered 
in diplomacy. They wrote with pen dipped 
in gall. Suppose the solitary biographer of 
the Christ had been Annas or Caiaphas, Sad- 
ducee or Pharisee, what distorted features of 
the Lord would we behold! It is but too ap- 
parent that, as seen through their eyes, he 
would have looked the embodiment of icono- 
clasm, self-opinionation, and colossal arro- 
gancy. We have other, truer, and therefore 
fairer pictures. They who loved him spoke of 



King Cromwell 29 

him as he was. They who hated him had cari- 
catured him, and written beneath the travesty, 
^'Tliis fellow." Cromwell's life was not writ- 
ten by men who knew and loved him, but by 
defeated cavaliers, by jealous inferiority, 
wrathful because of the man's supremacy, or 
by lovers of liberty who were dreamers, and 
had not the insight to discern what Cromwell 
perceived. With such biographers, who can 
wonder that the Cromwell of history seems a 
monster, a second Nero, whose memory is fit 
only for obloquy? This word of warning is 
absolutely necessary for those who would 
know the Puritan general and statesman 
aright. 

To the charge of hypocrisy let it be re- 
plied, while his enemies are a unit in this 
accusation, they are not at all agreed as to the 
particular instances in which his omnipresent 
hypocrisy was displayed. One says he was 
profoundly hypocritical in advocating Fair- 
fax's leadership in the war against the Scots; 
while Mrs. Harrison is sure that, though he 
was a monster of duplicity, he was honest here. 
Cromwell was not a hypocrite. If he was a 
hypocrite, then was a towering genius exercised 
here as elsewhere. Hypocrisy is acting a part. 



30 King Cromwell 

wearing a mask. Cromwell, if he wore a mask, 
never dropped it. Not in word spoken or writ- 
ten, not in public, nor in privacy to his best 
beloved, did he seem other than we know him. 
We are told his religious phrases were a hypo- 
crite's cant; but if any man can candidly read 
his letters and speeches and so believe, I mar- 
vel at his insight. What I maintain is that, if 
the man was a hypocrite, he was the most 
masterful deceiver history portrays; he was 
genius in his craft. In truth, the man was the 
soul of honest intention. He was a believer in 
God and the Puritan cause, and in his own 
mission. He thought himself called of God 
to act his heroic part. He was a believer in 
Divine decrees. He prayed, agonized, came 
from his hours of introspection, imbued with 
the idea of God's commission for a given task. 
Such a view of Cromwell makes his life ra- 
tional. We can thus comprehend it. There is 
logical consecutiveness in his character. But 
on any other theory there is no clue whereby 
to escape the labyrinth. The charge of hypoc- 
risy is an easy method of explaining an ab- 
struse human problem. It is a method much 
in vogue for explaining what otherwise is 
inexplicable. In my judgment there is no 



King Cromwell 31 

shred of proof of Cromwell's alleged hypoc- 
risy. 

'^Cromwell was cruel." I incline to the 
opinion that this will not bear the light of 
honest investigation. He was stern; he was 
a Puritan. That character was modeled after 
the Old Testament, rather than the New. The 
severity of Moses with the Amalekites was be- 
fore Cromwell's eyes. Those heathen, to his 
thought, were not more assuredly the enemies 
of God than the men against whom the Puri- 
tan unsheathed his sword. The instance al- 
ways adduced as proof positive of this charge 
is thje massacre of Drogheda and Wexford. 
But certain facts must be noted. War is not 
among the amenities. It is always cruel. But 
in this epoch, war was clothed with horrors 
our century can not comprehend. Tilly, in 
the Thirty Years' War, had been guilty of the 
most execrable atrocities. The Catholics in 
Ireland, during the early stages of the Parlia- 
mentary struggle, had massacred helpless vic- 
tims with such savage cruelty that England 
looked upon the perpetrators as fiends incar- 
nate. They were savage belligerents, whose 
proclivities for slaughter were so well know^ 
that it seemed essential to fling an abiding 



32 King Cromwell 

terror into their hearts. This was the end in. 
view when Drogheda and Wexford were 
stormed, and their population slaughtered. 
The end was gained. The hostile Irish were 
so totally subdued by the severity that they 
were guilty of no further outrage. Crom- 
well's plan, when the whole scope of affairs is 
considered, was without question the kindliest 
which could have been devised. This man by 
nature was not cruel. His government was 
not one of fierce acerbity. His was a gentle- 
ness, a tenderness of treatment to the con- 
quered cavalier, which presents a striking con- 
trast to the treatment accorded even the dead 
by re-enthroned royalty. Cromwell's govern- 
mental policy, viewed as a whole, is in no sense 
open to the charge of cruelty. 

But ''Cromwell betrayed the cause of lib- 
erty." This, if true, expunges the man's name 
from the roll of patriotism. A traitor! thing 
to be despised ! What are the facts ? On what 
grounds do the charges rest? He became 
Protector. The war was waged for liberty. 
Puritanism meant equality. A commonwealth 
shone in glory before their eyes. The ideal 
government was now to be inaugurated. 
Vane, Harrison, Haselrig, dreamed their day- 



King Cromwell 33 

dream of democracy. They shut eyes and ears. 
They were oblivious to the tumultuous seas 
surging about them. Cromwell knew his 
country and his time. He held his finger on 
the nation's pulse. He both heard and saw. 
He comprehended that the Long Parliament, 
which had in its life accomplished an epoch- 
making work, had now lived too long. It was 
becoming senile. The Commonwealth was 
speeding to destruction. Anarchy lay but a 
stone's cast ahead. Clear-visioned Cromwell 
comprehended this. Than he, no stronger be- 
liever in human equality lived. He would 
have England rule itself without the inter- 
position of army or general; but it was not 
capable for so herculean a labor. He chose 
to rule, rather than see the thing for which his 
army and himself had fought fall into ruin. 
England was not ready for self-govern- 
ment. It was not yet grown to man's estate. 
More than a century must pass before Puri- 
tanism would grow so great. Confessedly a 
nation must have assumed the toga virilis be- 
fore it can be self-controlling. France was 
incapable of self-government in 1789. The 
list of victims for the guillotine had not been 
half so long under a monarchy. It is a grave 

dfc. 



34 King Cromwell 

question whether to this hour the French peo- 
ple are qualified for this duty. The South 
American republics afford a melancholy spec- 
tacle and a suggestive lesson; while Mexico is 
a republic only in name. Cromwell waited 
with all patience till he saw whither England 
was drifting. He knew the brave craft would 
break to splinters on the rocks. The result 
subsequent to his death justified his views, 
and vindicated his motive. It was not a ques- 
tion of Commonwealth or Cromwell; it was 
a question of Cromwell or Charles 11. Crom- 
well, the great, the heroic, the true ; or Charles, 
the insignificant, the cowardly, the false — 
which shall rule? Dare any man halt between 
these extremes? This was the status of na- 
tional affairs which called forth the resolution 
and insight of the Puritan statesman. His 
Protectorate, so far from being a betrayal of 
liberty, was liberty's preservation. 

Having considered the negative phases of 
this man's character, look at the positive. 
Cromwell must be studied as soldier, orator, 
statesman, and man. 

And it is as a soldier the world knows him 
best. That martial figure rivets the world's 
gaze. He was the soldier pre-eminent of the 



King Cromwell 35 

Revolutionary period. He rose to be general 
of all the army by force of achievement and by 
right of qualification. He was himself. He 
alone could cope with fiery Rupert. He alone 
could organize a body of soldiery, whose fame 
should be as lasting as the world. There was 
in him the genius of originality and organiza- 
tion. He worked silently and persistently; and 
from that labor comes the Ironsides, a body of 
citizen-soldiers. Christians, buckling on the 
arms of temporal warfare — an organization 
where rank of mind was superior to rank of 
blood, a place where men might rise by cour- 
age and capacity, an embryonic military re- 
pubHc. This was the new model — praying sol- 
dier! Unique creation! Antony, Caesar, Fred- 
erick the Great, were not more original in the 
cast of their military genius than he. The 
formation of his army showed his discernment. 
An army once created, his plan of battle was 
to drive like a tornado at the enemy's center. 
He was no Fabius. The peculiarity of the 
Puritan character was visible in his military 
tactics. Massive directness, that was all— that 
was enough. Napoleon was to the end an ar- 
tillery officer. That stamped all his military 
ooerations. Cromwell was to the end a cav' 



36 King Cromwell 

airy officer. He fought to win ; he fought and 
won. His was no half-hearted battle; but he 
bared the blade to smite with all the strength 
that slumbered in his arm. What Tennyson 
sings of Wellington, might well be sung of 
Cromwell. He knew no defeat. His name is 
a synonym of victory. As a general, he is a 
pride to England, a glory to the world. 

Cromwell as orator! This seems a touch 
of irony, or at best of acid humor. But he was 
orator. He had no art of Burke or Fox. He 
was no Chatham, no Pitt. He had no grace of 
person, nor fascination of speech. But men 
heard him. He spoke only when his heart 
was full. He resorted to speech solely when 
his silence oppressed him like a nightmare. 
It was the thought he wished expressed that 
drove him to speech. His periods were not 
those of Edward Everett. There was turgidity 
of style which hints of striving to put much 
thought within the limits of contracted utter- 
ance. He was warrior even in his orations. 
His vocabulary is Anglo-Saxon. It is often 
forceful as a battle charge. He did not know 
circumlocution. In speech, as in battle, he 
drove at the center. The shortest method to 
express the thought was the line of advance. 



King Cromwell 37 

Some of his battle bulletins seem to me as ex- 
pressive as words could make them. I think 
no man could hear Cromwell speak and be un- 
certain as to his meaning. His metaphors are 
mixed, his sentences ill-balanced; but ambi- 
guity was not among his literary faults. There 
is, in his addresses as handed down to us, 
something so stalwart, rugged, soldier-like, 
that I, for one, can not escape their charm. I 
am well aware to speak of Cromwell as orator 
is new, but venture to hope there is more than 
audacity in the claim. 

Cromwell was a statesman. This is high 
honor to claim for any man. Statesmanship is 
the ability to discover the trend of events, and 
to shape the course of national affairs in har- 
mony therewith. Politicians are many, states- 
men few. They do not often arise. Mark the 
procession of legislators and premiers of any 
nation. Note them with care. See them with 
vision unobscured by the mists of contem- 
poraneous praise and blame; and the conclu- 
sion will be forced upon us, however unsavory 
it may prove, that the statesmen in any na- 
tion's life are lamentably few. Soldier, Crom- 
well was. The justice of this appellation no 
one denies ; but the qualities of generalship and 



38 King Cromwell 

statesmanship are not often co-existent. A 
man may be able to mass battalions and exe- 
cute maneuvers, and be wholly incapable of 
mastering even the rudiments of statecraft. Il- 
lustrations of the cruth of this statement mul- 
tiply in our thought. That Wellington, as a 
general, v^as great, let Waterloo declare; but 
that as a statesman he was below mediocrity, 
his premiership attests. To the rule as enun- 
ciated there are noticeable exceptions; but all 
such imply a plethora of genius. If Crom- 
well was statesman as well as general, mani- 
festly he belongs to that illustrious minority 
who are to be ranked as men of superlative 
powers. 

It is common to say he was no statesman. 
Eminent authorities are sponsors for this 
statement. But if statesmanship implies far- 
sighted discernment and ability to achieve suc- 
cess, surely he was a statesman. Cromwell 
believed in, and unflinchingly advocated, relig- 
ious toleration. In this the man was a century 
and more in advance of his times. He brought 
about the union of England, Ireland, and Scot- 
land. He befriended the American Colonies — 
a thing no other English king had done. He 
disfranchised rotten boroughs — a task requir- 



King Cromwell 39 

ing for its accomplishment the advocacy and 
diplomacy of leading statesmen of our cen- 
tury. He created the English navy. He at- 
tempted to reform the criminal law. He so 
championed the cause of Protestantism that 
he brought the Duke of Savoy to a humiliating 
cessation from persecution. His call assem- 
bled the much ridiculed "Barebones Parlia- 
ment/' concerning which it is only just to 
make two remarks: It was in a high sense a 
representative body; and did in its enactments 
forecast many of the most important acts of 
subsequent English legislation. Cromwell at- 
tempted a reform of the Court of Chancery, 
and succeeded beyond belief. He it was who 
patronized learned institutions, and first in- 
sisted that young men should be trained for 
the public service in the universities. 

These particularizations will suffice to jus- 
tify the assertion, ''Cromwell was a statesman." 
Many a man has been ranked with statesmen 
who accomplished not a tithe as much as he. 
His acts bear the insignia of statesmanship. 
True it is that many of Cromwell's ventures 
were not successful. His navies came back 
defeated; his hopes were unfulfilled. But in 
his vast schemes it was as in a battle with long 



40 King Cromwell 

battle front. In some places the forces are 
driven back, in others they charge victori- 
ously onward; and the army as a whole ad- 
vances with victory burning on its banners. 
Cromwell's plans, in part frustrated, in part 
successful, did in their entirety end in suc- 
cess. When his position is considered, and the 
odds against which he waged a sleepless war 
are numbered, it is not extravagant to affirm 
that no English-born king has shown himself 
so astute a statesman as the Puritan general, 
Oliver Cromwell. 

But far above the what a man achieves is 
the what he is. Manhood is nobler than 
genius. No achievement, however brilliant, 
can compensate for the lack of manliness. The 
what I am is the superior of what I do. Puri- 
tanism emphasized the dignity of man. Such 
character as that movement produced, Eng- 
land had not seen for centuries. It has too 
frequently been the case that great intellectual 
power has been characterized by correspond- 
ingly great turpitude. Genius gives license 
for lust. With Cromwell it was not so. He 
was pure. His Hfe was clean. Henry VIII 
was a libertine; Charles I, a liar; Charles II, 
a second Domitian for lascivious revels. 



King Cromwell 41 

Cromwell, in striking antithesis, was true to 
home. He honored his mother. He loved his 
wife. Their relations were the tenderest. He 
loved his children. His son, slain in battle, 
was never absent from his father's loving 
thought. His daughter dying, the great heart 
of the soldier broke. About the man was a 
noble dignity. He had no little lordliness, no 
assumed superiority which marks the over- 
elevation of a little soul. He rose not above 
his place, but to it. He possessed the dignified 
demeanor of a man "to the manner born," His 
comportment was such as brought no discredit 
to the great nation whose head he was. With 
him, Whitehall was the court of a Christian 
king. With his successor, it was a home of 
royal prostitution. Could contrast be more 
marked? As a man, simple, humble, not in- 
toxicated by his supreme elevation, but brave, 
pure, tender — he held to God as his soul's Sov- 
ereign. The man Cromwell is of colossal 
mold, fit companion for Cromwell orator, sol- 
dier, statesman. 

We judge men by what they achieve. Their 
works do magnify them. The poet's poem is 
his exaltation, and the painter becomes a 
name because his canvas glows with hues and 



42 King Cromwell 

forms of imperishable loveliness. This man 
should be judged by like standard. He was 
general and ruler. He was great at home and 
abroad. He commanded the admiration of 
contemporaries. He made his government to 
be respected, feared. He gave England im- 
perishable renown. Assuredly, if this man be 
judged by what he did achieve, he must be 
ranked, as says Goldwin Smith, "among the 
chiefest of the sons of men." 

Cromwell, the great Protector, lies dying. 
A storm, fierce, wild, terrible, rages. The gen- 
eral has come into his last battle. He will 
gird on sword no more. This is his last 
charge. It is September 3d, anniversary of 
victory at Dunbar and Worcester. From 
those conflicts he came forth unscathed. From 
this he will be carried to his grave. He prays. 
England prays. The storm exalts itself like a 
triumphant troop. Illustrious hour in which 
a great soul may pass "to where, beyond these 
voices, there is peace." The battle is ended. 
The hitherto invulnerable chief is slain. Crom- 
well lies dead. 

In Westminster Abbey there is a place for 
Mary, who lost Calais, and stained her hands 
with martyr's blood; but for Oliver Cromwell, 



King Cromwell 43 

no place. He sounded his guns on every 
shore. He lost no principality. He shed no 
martyr's blood. He championed freedom of 
conscience. He compelled respect for Anglo- 
Saxondom. He made England illustrious as 
the dawn. But for him is no place in the mau- 
soleum where English honor sleeps. 

In Westminster Abbey there is a place for 
Charles H, who made the English court a 
brothel, who sold Dunkirk to England's most 
inveterate foe for money to squander on har- 
lots — for him a place in Westminster! But for 
him who protected the lowliest citizen against 
the world, who made the Pope to do his bid- 
ding, who won Dunkirk with his soldier's 
hand — for Oliver Cromwell, there is no place 
in Westminster Abbey. Yet let this stand as 
an illustrious propriety. No cathedral shall 
hold him. He belongs to all the world. His 
fame is the common inheritance of the race. 



>1*f*/«. 




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WILLIAM A. QUAYLE 

THE POET'S POET AND OTHER ESSAYS 

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